“All adult patients should presume their appointment/procedure has been cancelled unless they are contacted. Those who turn up will be turned away,” said Dr. Dunderdale.

Meanwhile, the trust added that inpatients will continue to be cared for and discharged as soon as they are medically fit. Major trauma cases will continue to be diverted to neighboring hospitals, as will high-risk women in labor, it noted.

As of this writing, an update on the trust website says the majority of its electronic systems are now back up and running.

Source: www.nlg.nhs.uk

“We are hoping it will be business as normal tomorrow but please visit the website after 5pm today to ensure we have not had to make further cancellations,” read the notice.

Security journalist and investigative reporter Brian Krebs says the virus that infected NHS systems is likely an infestation of ransomware:

“Ransomware scours an infected computer for documents, audio files, pictures and other things likely to be of value to the system’s owner, and then encrypts that data with very powerful encryption software. Most ransomware variants also scour the local network for other systems or network shares to infect. Victims usually can only get their files back after paying a specified ransom demand using a virtual currency, such as Bitcoin,” explained Krebs in a blog post.